greatly annoyed by cats and rats, which had been landed from some ships touching there, and had now greatly increased. The rats gnawed his feet and clothes while he was asleep, so he bethought himself of encouraging the cats by giving them the goats' flesh. By this means so many of them became tame that they would assemble round him in hundreds, and kept the rats at bay. He likewise tamed some kids, and, to amuse himself, would now and then dance and sing with them and his cats. When his clothes wore out, he made himself a coat and cap of goat-skins, which he stitched together with thongs of the same material. A nail served him for a needle. When, in time, his knife wore out from constant grinding, he made others of some iron hoops which had been left on shore. Finding in his chest some linen cloth, he manufactured some shirts, using a nail as a needle, and employing the worsted of an old stocking to stitch them, and he had his last shirt on when discovered. Had the vessels he had seen been Frenchmen he would have gone among them, but he preferred the risk of dying on the island to falling into the hands of Spaniards, who would, he believed, have murdered him, or made him a slave in the mines, as they were supposed to treat all the strangers they could get hold of. He described the climate as genial, the winter lasting only during June and July, when there was but little frost, though occasionally heavy rains. He saw no venomous or savage creature on the island, the only beasts, besides rats and cats, being goats, the ancestors of which had been left there by Juan Fernandez, the discoverer. Besides the pimento-trees, some of which were sixty feet high, and some large cotton-trees, the only trees of value were some bearing black plums, which, however, growing among the mountains and rocks, were difficult to get at. The trees and grass were verdant all the year round, and it was evident that the soil was fertile in the extreme. Alexander Selkirk was the true original of Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe." He afterwards entered the Royal Navy as a lieutenant, but obtained no higher rank. Many of the men who had been suffering from scurvy were here landed and sheltered in tents, and by means of two or three goats which Selkirk caught for them each day, and the vegetables with which they were supplied, they soon recovered. Sailing from Juan Fernandez, a look-out was kept for Spanish vessels. Quarrels and disputes arose among the officers, but they were settled by the judicious management of the captain, and by the sensible regulations laid down for their government.